The present invention is directed to a jet using pressurized gaseous fluids for fracturing or partially fracturing yarns of certain fiber cross-sections and for entangling the yarns, and particularly to a jet that constitutes an improvement over the jet disclosed in the Dyer patent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,924,868.
The use of jets or jet devices employing gaseous fluids, usually air, for treating yarns and textile yarns in some manner is known. Jets may be used to entangle multifilaments of yarn, to bulk or loft yarn, to splice yarn ends by entangling, to feed and convey yarn, etc.
The White patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,242,035, for instance, discloses a jet for fibrillating a film strip of polymeric material by contacting successive portions of the film strip with a high velocity jet or stream of gas or air to produce a cohesive rupture of the filmstrip. The resulting product is a bulky multifibrous yarn made up of fibrils of irregular length, the fibrils being interconnected at random points to form a cohesive unitary or one piece network structure. The jet structure involves simply a cylindrical yarn passageway, which is intersected by a gas passageway.
There are other types of jets, however, which employ the use of needles or small nozzles and venturis, with the yarn passing through the needle or nozzle and through the venturi. The instant invention employs structure of this type and not structure of the type disclosed by the White patent mentioned above. The jet structures, which employ the venturi, may be used to bulk or loft yarn, such as the previously mentioned Dyer patent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,924,868. The Breen patent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,869,967, discloses in FIG. 4, for instance, another example of such venturi construction, which is used to form a bulky yarn. In one embodiment of the Breen patent, yarn composed of substantially continuous filaments is fed through a jet operated under conditions such that the filaments are shattered at random intervals to provide desired free ends of projecting fiber. The jet creates a turbulence that causes separation of the filaments and then causes the separated filaments to be whipped about with such rapidity that the flex life of the material is quickly exceeded and some or many of the filaments are caused to be broken. The severity of the shattering effect varies with the flex life of the filament material.
Other jet constructions may be mentioned, but the structure of the present invention more closely resembles the structure disclosed in the aforementioned Dyer patent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,924,868, than the other structures. Therefore, a discussion in the rest of this specification of the differences between these two structures will be more significant for a better understanding of the invention.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to provide a jet capable of using high pressures on the order of 300 to 500 psig. of a gaseous fluid, such as air, to partially fracture a yarn, such as a polyester yarn, wherein the yarn comprises individual filament cross-sections, each having a central, nearly cylindrical body with two lateral "wings" diametrically extending from the central cylindrical body along the same diametrical line, and the high pressures of the jet serve to partially sever the "wings" to form protecting ends along the length of the central body.
Another object of the invention is to provide a jet that is not only capable of using the high pressures of gaseous fluid previously mentioned but is also capable of partially severing the "wings" of the individual filaments in the manner mentioned and entangling the filaments to form them into a cohesive yarn body.
Still another object of the invention is not only to provide a jet of the capabilities mentioned above, but also to provide a jet that can use such high pressures but at a significantly reduced rate of gas or air consumption previously known, at least as compared with the use of the Dyer jet construction if not also as compared to the other structures, that makes the use of the jet highly commercially attractive in producing partially fractured yarn and entangled yarn in the manner briefly described above.